by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given February 23, 2003

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

It was ten years ago this very month of February that I was installed as your minister. It’s hard to believe. The time has gone so fast, and it has been so rich. I feel so fortunate to be in the place that "turned round right," as the old Shaker hymn says.

But where to begin the story of our relationship? It has to begin way back when. When I was a little Catholic girl, I was afraid I might be called to be a nun. But I was reluctant, even at that young age, to consider such a severe withdrawal of the flesh. Then when I was a Southern Baptist, I was afraid I might be called to be a missionary. Women couldn’t be ministers, you see, but they could be missionaries. So during the revivals, I would pray earnestly that God wouldn’t call me to go to some far-off foreign land—perhaps Africa or China—where I would probably die of some disease whose name I couldn’t even pronounce.

In a word, I was reluctant. To me, God was like some big mother cat that would pick me up like a tiny, mewling kitten and drop me wherever she liked. I wanted to choose, not just be dropped. I didn’t understand at that time that this big mother cat in the sky loved her kittens and wanted them safe and satisfied.

Life moved on again, and I grew up to become first a teacher and then a wife and mother, and then six years later, the single mother of two young boys. I have a lot of empathy for single moms, because I know how hard it is. Sometimes I worked two jobs, sometimes I was unemployed. I became depressed and ill. At this point—and I remember the day—I fell to my knees, literally and figuratively, and gave myself away. I prayed, and this was my prayer: "God, I don’t know whether you exist or not, but I’m not doing so well running my life. So I’m giving it to you. Now, God, how about a little leadership!"

My way was not made known for about two more years. Finally I was led to seminary. I chose Starr King School in Berkeley, CA. Berkeley was like a foreign country to me—instead of fried chicken and biscuits, there was Thai food and cappuchino. There were people of many different tongues and colors. I saw a dumpster with huge letters of graffiti painted on the side: it said, "Recycle or die!" I thought to myself, "These people are pretty intense." But this is where the mother cat dropped me. What a surprise! I was there for eight years, four for seminary and four for a Ph.D. program in theology and literature. It was a period of great joy and growth.

But then what? What was I to do with all I had been given? How was I to give back? Would I become an academic? A writer? A parish minister?

Some of you have heard the story of how I came to Portland to be your minister, and others of you haven’t, but like all good stories, it deserves to be told again. I actually pre-candidated, or interviewed for two years, at nine other churches before I came to Portland for yet another interview. Now, these pre-candidating things are not just a couple of hours long—they are more typically 2 ½ days long, spent with the search committee. Most ministers do two, possibly three pre-candidatings, hardly ever four or five, and I did ten. Our headquarters in Boston was becoming impatient with me. "You are being aloof with these churches!" The head of placement told me. "I just don’t feel that I’ve been called yet," I said. But inside I was beginning to wonder. Was I supposed to be a minister? Maybe not.

Something changed when I flew into Portland. Having never been in the Northwest, I was amazed at all the green I saw from the window of the plane. One of the members of the search committee picked me up and drove me around the city, looking at neighborhoods. Again, the trees, the green. I had already turned down two churches in Southern California because, well, there were no trees. God couldn’t possibly want me to go to a place without trees! The neighborhoods in Portland looked attractive and friendly. I was taken to the church. I had seen the pictures, so I knew there was a steeple. I was awed by the beauty of the Salmon Street Sanctuary. "Here is sacred space," I thought. "Here is a church that knows it is a church."

I met with the search committee for the first time that evening, and as we neared the end of our conversation, I said to them—and some of them are here this morning, Mary Bothwell, Larry Frager, Arthur Whinston, Florence Rawson—I said to them, "This is where I am called to be." It wasn’t the trees, the lovely homes, not even the gorgeous sanctuary—it was the mother cat grabbing her kitten by the neck and dangling that kitten over First Unitarian of Portland, Oregon.

Apparently, the Lord had not spoken to the search committee so plainly as to me, so as I remember, there was a lot of coughing at that point. Finally one of them said to me, "Well, why do you think you are called to this church?" And the reasons just rolled off my tongue. The last thing I said was, "You are a great church. But you have forgotten that you are a great church. I can help you realize your greatness." And then I said, "And you can offer me something that I need. You have a high standard of excellence here. And I want to be challenged to excellence, to be the best I can be. You can give me that challenge."

Against all logic and practice, I was not supposed to be called to a large church, for I had never had a called position—I was a new seminary graduate. But somehow I knew that this was the place I was supposed to be. Months later, the phone call came. My head had said, "Don’t even hope for this," but my heart keep telling me the truth. "We have chosen you," the voice said. I knew what she would say before the words were even spoken. "Yes," I said. "Yes." It was almost matter-of-fact. I knew.

And the rest is history, as they say. Ten and a half years of history we have, you and I. And it has been a fruitful union. I could talk about membership growth. I could talk about the growth of your generosity in giving. I could talk about our social justice witness here in the city, the state, and in the larger Unitarian Universalist movement. Yes, I am proud of us for all of this, but I will not talk about these things.

What is closest to my heart is our growth in the Spirit. That is what has made everything possible. We have gone along during these years, you helping me, me helping you along the road. At the end of the service today we are going to sing the hymn that we sang on the Sunday you called me to be your minister. It goes, "Hold my hand, stand by me, search my heart, while I run this race: I don’t want to run this race in vain." Every step I have taken, you have been with me. You have called me to excellence. And I hope that you accept your greatness—and your responsibility—as an institution.

Ministry is about lots of things—it’s about administration and fundraising and planning and preaching and witnessing—but it’s mainly, it’s always, fundamentally about relationship. Recently, one of our members who was hospitalized said to me, "Thanks for coming to visit me—I know you are so busy . . ." But this is what I do, I say. That’s hard for some of you self-reliant Northwesterners to understand. I remember when I first came to Portland, one of our members, a young mother, was in the hospital with a sudden paralysis of her legs. I walked into the hospital room and she sat up in her bed and blurted out, "Oh, my God, it’s worse than I thought!" This is the most important thing I do, to be with you when you are hurting and lost. When you lose a loved one. When you are ill. When hope is almost gone. How can I preach, but out of that knowing? Out of that relationship?

I love preaching. I love being with you in this special way, when our community is all gathered together. Before I preach, I look out into the congregation, and I see you, and I think of your stories. And then I speak. But you know the sermon is not on this printed page. It is not in the words I speak, it’s not in this script. The sermon happens somewhere between us, somewhere in the middle out there. When I am preaching, if my heart is in the right place, I become a vessel of the Spirit—not because every sermon is great, no, but because my love for you is great, and I am here for you, receiving you. And if you bring a soul that is longing to hear, you will hear what you need to hear, far beyond what my poor words would suggest. And each of you will hear a different sermon. That’s the magic that happens here on Sunday mornings.

Most every year, I offer a Soul Retreat, a time when 30 or 40 of us come together for a weekend to reflect on our spiritual lives. During these retreats, I always set aside an evening "question and answer" session in which I invite questions, theological and otherwise, from the group. Someone generally asks me: "What is the hardest thing about being a minister?" I love my work. It has chosen me, and I have responded in the only possible way—"yes." But I would never encourage anyone to choose ministry as just some kind of job alternative. It has to be a call; it has to be the only thing you can do. It is the call that sustains you.

What is the hardest thing about being a minister? Well, all human beings have unconscious longings and wishes, and day in and day out we cast these idealized pictures onto leaders of all kinds, everything from politicians to sports stars to religious figures. In the psychological vernacular, we call these "projections." But in church these feelings gather particular force and energy. It is here where people feel particularly vulnerable, because it is here that we bring the deepest concerns of our hearts. We ministers become Mother (or Father), God, and Boss. We become every authority figure people have ever been unhappy with, with the God wash coloring it all. Or we carry the congregants’ goodness, as they project that upon us. After all, it’s easier to idealize the minister than to accept your own beauty and goodness. Take your own goodness, I want to say. Accept your beauty. Don’t put it onto me. If you do, I will surely fall off the pedestal—and the result will not be pleasant for either one of us.

When the minister becomes a larger-than-life Holy Person, a kind of walking Sunday, woe unto him, then, if he ever shows some human characteristic—above all, anger. Woe unto her if she speaks sharply or looks past someone, or even forgets to smile. Female ministers are particularly vulnerable, because they are expected to be strong but soft; decisive but demur, firm, but feminine. They become the mother who takes care of all our needs. Like any public person, I live in the proverbial goldfish bowl, except that this goldfish bowl has a halo around the top. I must watch my language; I must cover my body. I do not belong to myself.

The other piece of ministry that is particularly hard comes out of the very privilege of being a minister. I grow to love you—not just as a congregation, but as particular human beings. It’s like being the parent of a large extended family. Then from time to time, I lose some of you. Sometimes you leave without saying goodbye. And sometimes Death comes calling. I’m not just a professional person, who can remove myself from my feelings when a congregant I love falls sick or dies. I grieve, too. I hold those feelings back while I’m preparing the memorial and conducting the service, of course. But I often put the pictures, the obituary notices, up on my fridge, sometimes for months or even years, just remembering these ones who have gone. Melissa Buchan, Elizabeth Hirsch, Stuart Gates, Florence Lehman, Keith Neeley, Kay Corbett, Daisy Bingham. These and so many more have touched my life so deeply, and I have had to let them go. It’s like that, isn’t it? It’s the price you pay for loving. And I would never, never give up the loving. I live with my heart outside my body, all the time.

What do I need from you, to keep going, to keep loving, to keep leading? I need your joyful participation in the life of the church—I need to see you here on Sunday morning, singing "Spirit of Life," and feeling the great and joyful energy of this church. I need to see you working for racial justice, marching for a cause you believe in, caring for one another when someone falls ill. I need your devotion to your own spiritual growth—from this community, you can receive guidance and support, but ultimately it is up to you. And what do I need from you personally? I need your trust—your trust that I would never betray you. Not that I’m perfect—far from it. But I need you to trust in my goodness towards you. And, though I try hard not to, I will fail you at times, and I need your forgiveness.

This is a great church—in fact, I can’t imagine serving any other church after being with you. So I’m here for the duration. This is a significant institution, and we have a great work to do. We are a powerful voice in the community, and a leader in the Unitarian Universalist movement. But we have challenges, and formidable ones. We need to continue to develop community, to provide more small group experiences, so that people who come here will not feel isolated in this large congregation. We have grown so much in our generosity, in giving of our financial resources, and we need to continue growing there.

An immediate challenge is space for this burgeoning congregation. We so much need a facility for religious education—a facility that will allow us to welcome the many children and adults who come to this community of liberal faith, a facility not for our own needs alone, but also for the growing needs of a community so short on human services. We have been remarkably successful in the first phase of our Capital Fund Drive, restoring and beautifying this sanctuary so it can be used for worship, purchasing this magnificent organ, refurbishing Fuller Hall, so we can have adequate space for coffee hour, doing the deferred maintenance on our historic Salmon Street Sanctuary. Now we must move forward on the next challenge before us.

In the words of Mary Oliver, in the poem you heard earlier, "It <is> already late/ enough, and a wild night,/ and the road full of fallen/ branches and stones . . . ." The road is full of fallen branches and stones. But here—this church—is a place of solace and rest, a place of inspiration, a place where the ground is steady beneath our feet. The road is full of fallen branches and stones, for these are the times in which history has placed us. We do not have to travel this road alone, we will not travel this road in vain. We are together, and we move, through the power of the Spirit, to purposes larger than our own. We move to save the only life we can save, in the only world we have been given. So be it. Amen.

 PRAYER

Spirit of Life, we give thanks for our church this day, humbly, because we know whatever good we do and whatever good we become rests in a power greater than our own. We ask for your continued blessing as we try to answer our call as a people—to grow spiritually, to continue to learn, to create a community of love and justice that reaches out far beyond our walls. Amen.

BENEDICTION

May God continue to bless us in our common ministry. Go now, in love and in peace.

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Copyright 2003,  Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.